Budgeting

The number one reason small businesses go under is lack of budgeting. People put all their money into getting the business started and they have not put anything aside to keep the business running or to cover the costs if something goes wrong. Home owners do the same thing. They scape together everything they can to make the down payment on the house, then, to take an example that is close to home, they are in a terrible bind when the water heater goes out the month after they move in.

When I was in high school and then again in college, we all had to take a personal finance class. With the budget cuts and the focus on standardized tests, I have heard that most schools have eliminated these classes. This is a shame. I am always amazed that we hire people to manage millions of dollars worth of business and they can't even balance their own check book or they are FedExing their check to American Express to get it there on time. I have worked with a lot of really smart people over the years, much smarter than me, but many of them didn't understand that paying the minimum on their credit card will take 20 years to pay it off, or how much they could afford to pay for rent. I always feel really old when I do this, but if someone asks me a financial question, I like to get them to work out a simple budget and most of them are amazed to learn they are way over extended. Usually I can help them work out a plan to get them out of debit and saving some money within one year. Attached is my simple starter budget to see what your monthly costs are versus your income.

Once you've done this, you need to think about big one-time costs, like property taxes, etc. and make sure you are saving money to cover them. I also like to take out my weekly "allowance" in cash. If you take out a standard amount every Monday to cover lunch, coffee, drinks, etc., you'll know if you can get out on Saturday night or not by what's left in your pocket. A little discipline goes a long way.

Grocery Shopping

I like grocery shopping. I like to make a list and go down all the aisles checking off the stuff I need. I have gone as far as creating a list of all the things we normally buy and put them in order for easier shopping. It took a couple of trial runs to get things in the right place, but now shopping is pretty easy. Some things are not in the place you might fist suspect. For instance Velveeta is not in the cheese aisle as it is a processed food, so you find it over by the mac and cheese. Another interesting one is sunflower seeds. I thought they would be by the nuts, but they are in the candy aisle. I also wonder why all the organic and "natural" stuff is together in one section versus having it out on the regular aisles. Maybe it's so the greenies can get everything they need and get out without being contaminated by the regular stuff.

The only problem with my list is if the grocery store moves something, then I have to realign my list. I also am kind of committed to the one Fred Meyer on Glisan that I have set up my list for as every store is a little different.

My Trip to Al-Qaeda

My Trip to Al-Qaeda is a documentary based on Lawrence Wright's one man play of the same name. It chronicles fundamentalist Islam's rise to power and explores Wright's struggle to maintain his objectivity as a journalist writing about Islamic terror in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Looming Tower.

Lawrence lived for a time in the middle east and has extensive knowledge of the players in the world of radical Islam. He also wrote the screenplay for a movie called The Siege that came out in 1998. This is pertinent because it was a precursor to 9/11. In the story, the US government has abducted an Islamic religious leader, which leads to New York City becoming the target of escalating terrorist attacks. As the bombings continue, the US government responds by declaring martial law, and torturing captives. Sound familiar? Needless to say, it was not very popular among the Muslim community and a group of radicals blew up a Hard Rock cafe in South Africa in response to the movie trailer, because one of the stars, Bruce Willis, was a partner in the restaurant. A 12 year-old girl died as a result.

This is only one of the stories Lawrence tells in the movie. Another explores his relationship with the brother of Osama bin Laden, who became a source for Lawrence and was questionably linked to the 9/11 bombings through phone records. Before he could clear his name (or not) he was murdered.

This movie has been attacked from all sides. Muslims feel like they are unfairly portrayed as radicals. Conservatives will say Lawrence is an apologist and liberals will cringe at his admission of wanting to take out some of these people he was reporting on. Still it is an interesting insight into what the US is up against if we ever hope to end the fighting in the middle east.

Ankle One Week Later

It has been just over a week since I fell an hurt my ankle in Ft. Worth. I have tried as much as possible to rest it and keep it wrapped with the Ace bandage. So far I have felt improvement every day and I even started back at yoga although I don't have very good range of motion yet. On Monday I started to see a lot of bruising, but that has gone away now.

On the way to lunch today, I had a set back. I tripped on the stairs at Nike and turned over my ankle. It hurt almost as badly as the first time although it was a pretty slight twist. I was able to walk again after sitting a few minutes, but it was a painful for the rest of the day.


I have noticed that the ankle is getting stiff from not working out, so I have begun to try to improve the range of motion by bending it more and lifting my toes when I am standing. Hopefully this will help avoid any long-term damage.

The Big Short by Michael Lewis

At one point in The Big Short, the author Michael Lewis reflects back on his first book about the financial industry, Lairs Poker, and thinks how innocent the deception seemed then versus what he was trying to get his arms around in 2007. It's a little like the trailer for the new Wall Street movie staring Michael Douglas, where he says, "someone once said, 'greed is good' now it's legal." The 1980's greed of Wall Street in Lairs Poker seems so innocent now, but it is also the genesis of everything that went wrong in the financial meltdown of 2007.

At the end of The Big Short, Lewis has lunch with his old boss at Soloman Brothers, this is the man who took the brokerage public. At one point he seems to admit this was the beginning of the end, when the brokerages stopped gambling their own money and started gambling with the shareholders money. Since they had a lot less to loose, the risks got completely out of control. This book is a little hard to follow if you don't understand the world of big finance. However, Lewis does a great job of walking you through what was happening and you quickly learn that most people who were involved had no clue what was going on either. Here is the bottom line. At some point in the 2000's it became way too easy to get a home loan. Sub-prime hit the basement with lairs loans, where you didn't have to provide any proof that you had a job, and as soon as you got your first loan you could take out the equity on the (raising) house value and buy a second investment property. The banks didn't care because they sold the loans to financial companies like Bear Sterns and Goldman Sacks who sold them off as bonds or the now infamous collateralize debt obligation (CDO). From here on it gets a little complicated, as no one really knows how to value the CDOs, and the ratings companies don't their jobs to protect the consumer, and the house of cards gets ever higher.

Despite the press reports, there are a few smart people that figured out what was going on, and while everyone one else was betting that house prices could only go up, they bet the other side. The best part about this book is that these few smart people are all interesting characters and their stories are amazing. I know this is hard to believe, but you will not want this book to end. It is truly a great read.

Little Big Burger

Micah Camden, owner of Beast, Fats, Yakuza and DOC, has just opened Little Big Burger in the Pearl District and lines are already out the door and down the block. His burger at Yakuza (Kobe beef and goat cheese with fried, chile-spiked, truffle-scented potatoes) has been voted one of the best in Portland, so this shouldn't come as a surprise.


The Little Big Burger is a mini Yakuza burger, or what Camden calls a "mega slider." The formula includes Oregon's Highland Oak beef topped with your choice of cheese and chopped onions, on a Grand Central Bakery bun, for $3.75. The menu is limited to four items: the burger ($3.25), fries ($2.75), sodas ($1.57), and floats ($3.50). There is also a veggie burger ($3.50). I think they hope to add beer soon. The interior is a bright fast-food-inspired atmosphere with white and red colors, that fills up very fast at lunch.


The burgers are very tasty, you should plan on getting two if you are hungry, and the fries are great. Even though they were overwhelmed with people, the service was good and we didn't have to wait very long for our burger.

11 AM - close, 7 days a week.

Little Big Burger
122 NW 10th Ave.
Portland, OR 97209
503- 274-9009

New Drain

As some of you may remember, we had a bad flood last spring. Water got under the house and flooded the water heater and did some pretty serious damage. When I tried to file a claim against the city, they called it an extraordinary aquatic event and did not accept any blame despite the fact that a city engineer found two drains blocked uphill from our house. My hope is that this will not happen again and today I think the city took a big step in helping out by putting a new drain outside our driveway where the majority of the water collects.

Purple Panthers 3, Hot Shots 4

I took my niece Sophie to her soccer game today, but unfortunately I was not a good luck charm as they lost 3-4. Sophie played pretty well, but her team does not have a good goal keeper which makes a big difference. I thought the coaching was pretty bad, but then I realized it is hard to get second graders to listen for more than 10 seconds. The biggest problem was that they all run to the ball in a swarm, so the ball never really goes anywhere. One of the other teams coaches obviously understood this as he had one girl always stand on the other side of the goal from the swarm. The couple of times the ball squirted out she had a wide open shot on goal.

Ankle, day three

The ankle is still sore, but I am walking better. I got an Ace bandage that is helping a lot. It also helps to keep it elevated.

Lanny's Alta Cocina Mexicana

Here's another great Ft. Worth restaurant recommendation for you, Lanny's Alta Cocina Mexicana on 7th street, out by the Montgomery Park building. This seems to be a happening area in Ft. Worth with a lot of nice places to eat, museums, etc. Lanny's is not the kind of place you'll find without a recommendation, as it is small and you have to be in the know to hear about it. Luckily one of my clients recommended it to us.

The have a small menu with tapas, soups and salads, and a half dozen entrees. We tried the civeche, the tamales and the scallops with lobster and mango salsa to start and they were all delicious. The cucumber and tomato salad was also very nice. The star of the entrees was the carne asada which came with bacon wrapped asparagus and risotto. The halibut, lamb and duck were also very good, but the salmon got a mediocre review. None of us were brave enough to order the kobe beef ribeye at $12 an ounce. We finished it off with some great deserts, I can highly recommend the key lime cheesecake made with goat cheese.

The service is fantastic at Lanny's and they have a great wine list that we needed some help with. We started out with a nice cava, Spanish champagne, and then moved on to a couple of Argentinian malbecks. The margaritas are also excellent.


Lanny's Alta Cocina
Place page
3405 W. 7th Street
Fort Worth, TX 76107
(817) 850-9996

Ankle, day two

Day two of RICE, but not so much rest as I have had to walk around a lot for work, some icing, compression from the Ace bandage, and a little elevation when I can sit down. It is still super swollen, but a lot better than yesterday.

Fall down, go boom.

Yesterday I was walking out of the hitting bay down in Ft. Worth and I somehow twisted my ankle and fell down some concrete stairs. I have been practicing RICE - rest, ice, compression and elevation. Elevation is the hardest one as I have been trying to sleep with my foot up.

Reata Restaurant

If you are looking for steak in Ft. Worth, Reata is a great alternative to Del Frisco's which is super expensive. Reata is just expensive. I had an amazing chicken fried steak, and the rest of the crew were happy with with their steaks. They also had a very nice sea bass. None of us were brave enough to try the buffao steaks, but I will if I come back.

The service is great, all the waiters dress like cowboys and they have a nice wine list. Make sure you leave room for deserts, as they have an amazing tray to choose from. I can recommend the pecan pie with Bluebell ice cream and the banana pudding.

Reata Restaurant
310 Houston St,
Fort Worth, TX
(817) 336-1009

Rangers Game

Tonight we went to see the Texas Rangers play the New York Yankees at The Ballpark in Arlington. It was a super hot evening, but luckily we got a seat in the shade. The overhang also helped us as it started to pour down rain in the fifth inning. GW Bush was there, but he let during the rain delay. The game got going again at 10:30 p.m., but then the Yankees started making pitching changes every batter and the game bogged down. We decide to leave in the seventh and unfortunately for us, we missed Mariano Rivera blowing a save in the ninth (a once in a lifetime event).

Sleeping on the Bus

I guess this person had a busy long weekend. She did not seem very happy about going to work this morning. Personally I am too paranoid to fall asleep on the bus. One, you could touch your head, or worse your face, to something really gross; two, you might miss your stop; or three someone could think you are venerable and touch you or steal something from you. Not a good idea.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Edgar Wright is the director that brought us the amazing films Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, so the question is, what happens when he gets Hollywood money to make a film? The answer is a really good movie that is over the top in an entirely different way.

The thing that hits you right away about Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is the graphics. The movie is based on a graphic novel by Bryan Lee O'Malley and many of those graphic elements are animated into the movie, so, the fight scenes have "thwacks!" and "Oooffs" and when people kiss animated hearts come out of their mouths. This would be disconcerting if I hadn't heard an interview with the director about how he wanted to take everything to the extreme. And he does take everything to the extreme.

The basic premise is that Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) is a 20-something looser living in a very small apartment with a roommate that owns everything in it. He falls in love with Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and to keep her, he has to defeat her seven evil exes. These encounters become more and more perilous and Scott Pilgrim's life gets pretty complicated. The fight scenes are pure fantasy and can be jarring. Wright suggests we think of them as songs in a musical, but instead of breaking into song the characters break into video game like fight sequences.

Normally I wouldn't enjoy this kind of movie, but with a little warning of what I was getting into I was able to enjoy it a lot more. It is a funny and entertaining farce.

Rumpole of the Bailey by John Mortimer

Once again I have to thank my Dad for the book of the month thing he gave me several years ago. I still get books, not every month, but at least five to seven a year. This month I got Rumpole of the Bailey by John Mortimer. It is a compilation of several stories that was also a very popular TV series on the BBC from 1975-1992. Unfortunately I had never heard of Rumpole before, but now I am hooked.

Rumpole is an aging barrister who specializes in criminal cases in London's Old Bailey. First it is important to know what a barrister is, because I didn't. In the Britain most lawyers are solicitors and they are much like what we think of as lawyers in the US. However, when you go to court in Britain, a barrister is the person who works with a solicitor to advocate for you in front of a judge and jury.

Rumpole is quite a colorful barrister who will take any case and who's motto is "never plead guilty." While he loves his wife, she is fondly referred to as "She who must be obeyed," he also spends a lot of time after work in the wine bar talking law. He has a lot of funny stories and has amassed a great history of cases over the years. He is a man of principles, but these principles are more likely to be appreciated by the murderers, safe-crackers and petty thieves he represents than the "learned gentlemen" he works with.

Rumpole of the Bailey is a great look back at the transition England went through in the 70's and 80's as the old upper crust fell gave way to hippies, punks, and yuppies.